Murder victim’s plea for slow death

Murder victim’s plea for slow death

A MURDER victim in Toowoomba negotiated the method of his death with his killers after being forced to watch two other people murdered, the Toowoomba Children’s Court was told yesterday.

A witness to the murder, Mark Noffke, 18, who was at the property when the three brutal slayings occurred, struggled to remain calm yesterday as he told the court of the gruesome events at a Hume St unit on May 31 last year.

He said the third victim, Michael Thompson, 30, knowing that two teenagers had already been brutally murdered, and knowing he was next, suggested that the killers cut his achilles tendon and let him bleed to death.

But when he did not bleed to death as planned, and plans to break his neck failed, the killers resorted to bashing him to death with metal pipes.

The three accused, who cannot be named or identified, include two Rockhampton teenagers, aged 16 and 17 at the time of the killings.

The pair have been charged with the triple murders, rape, deprivation of liberty and torture.

The third accused is a Toowoomba youth, 16, who has been charged with two counts of murder, torture and deprivation of liberty.

Noffke told the court that he saw two of the accused stomp on the first victim’s head and heard several thumps from outside the garage, which left Tyson Wilson, 17, dead.

The second victim, David Lyons, 17, was then bashed and his throat cut with a knife after he tried to calm a teenage girl who had a baby with her at the unit. The girl was then raped several times by one or both of the killers, Noffke said.

He said he later heard the third victim, Michael Thompson, say to one of the killers: “If you are going to kill me can you cut my achilles tendon and talk to me while I bleed to death in the shower? Don’t kill me with the pole.”

Noffke said Thompson was then told it was his turn to die and someone picked up the knife and started to cut Thompson’s achilles tendon but it didn’t bleed.

“(Then) Michael said, `How much longer?’ And they said they’d just have to use the bar.”